To real necessity he was occasionally very serviceable indeed, so long as it did not put its empty hand in his own pockets; but on the distresses of fine ladies and gentlemen he was exceedingly severe. Why couldn’t everybody keep straight as he himself had always kept? “Why do you bother about Cocky and your sister?” he said to Hurstmanceaux, whom he had known from a child, as they sat alone in the ducal smoking-room. “If Cocky and your sister had a million a year to-morrow they’d want a million and a half when the year ended. There are people like that: you can’t alter ’em. Their receptivity is always greater than what they receive. Their maw’s bigger than the biggest morsel you can put into it. Don’t strip yourself for them. You might as well go without your bath for fear the Thames should run dry.” Daddy was so fond of pretty women (platonically) that he generally forgave them all their sins, which was the easier because they were not sins against himself. But Lady Kenilworth, though he admired her, he did not like her; he gave her a little sly pat whenever he could. She yawned when he talked, which nobody else ever did, and once, when they were staying at the same country house, when he had offered to ride with her, she had told him in plain terms that she didn’t care for old men in the saddle or out of it. It was not in human nature to forget and forgive such a reply, even though you were the best natured man in the world. He could not do her much harm, for Mouse was at that height of beauty, fashion and renown at which a person is absolutely unassailable; but when he could breathe on the mirror of her charms and dull it, he did so; when he could slip a little stone under the smoothly-rolling wheel of her life’s triumphal chariot, he did so. It was but rarely. She was a very popular person. Her elastic spirit, her beauty, her grace, her untiring readiness for pleasure, all made her welcome in society; her very insolence was charming, and her word was law on matters of fashion. She was often unkind, often malicious, always selfish, always cruel, but these qualities served to intimidate and added to her potency. People trembled for her verdict and supplicated for her presence. Whether she were leading the cotillon or the first flight, whether she was forming a costume quadrille or bringing down a rocksetter, she was equally admirable, and although she excelled in masculine sports she had the tact always to remain exquisitely feminine in appearance and style. She had had also the tact and the good luck always to preserve her position. She had always done what she liked, but she had always done it in such a way that it had never injured her. CHAPTER X.